


stop looking up for heaven, waiting to be buried.

by incalyscent



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Historical, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lowercase, Not Reader Insert, POV Second Person, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, i just have a lot of devil feels okay?, i wasn't going to post this but i love it too much, local poet does poetry, no beta we die like men, so fasten your seatbelts, weren't expecting that huh?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 06:29:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20670848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incalyscent/pseuds/incalyscent
Summary: she has eyes like heaven’s blue sky, and everything inside you saysohwhen you see her.





	stop looking up for heaven, waiting to be buried.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redledgers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redledgers/gifts).

> and then you put your hand in mine  
and pulled me back from things divine  
stop looking up for heaven  
waiting to be buried
> 
> -bastille, _glory_

when you hit the ground, all the breath comes out of you and then back in as a sob. you’re not sure what’s blood and what’s tears. your first instinct is to pull the name of your father out of the air and form it into the cadence of your tongue, let things ripe and holy dribble from your lips. to call out. and you can’t do any of those; the word won’t fit to your teeth. you garbel on gritty dust, roll to your back, listening to your bones creak in the dark. it’s cold. they didn’t say it would be cold. the sound of wings is just barely over the ringing in your ears, but you can’t find the voice to shout. can’t find the voice to plea. everything hurts so much. you can’t move your wings. the divine in you leaves with micheal.

and as you taste iron, you lift an arm 

and scratch your fingers against the sky. 

the stars mourn, and beckon you 

home, and beckon you  _ home _ .

as you watch your skin peel to red the world turns to fire and swallows you up, and you don’t ever remember your voice being so  _ loud _ .

-

hell is cruel and you are not. not yet.

it doesn’t take long for you to get angry.

rage is a seed your father did not forget about, even in his angels.

-

what was it that plucked you? was it the demons, or was it lilith’s clawed hands? did you bite into that knife yourself, or was it bit into you? did you count every feather as they fell? or had you been alone long enough that you didn’t feel a thing?

-

lilith says  _ he’s made something awful _ and you slither to the surface to see for yourself. the world is different than it was when you once thought to hold it in your hands; eden is lush on your feet, and you drop to the ground, smell the petrichor, will yourself into something more beautiful just from the sheer joy of it. since the fall everything has been hot, torturous, barren.

and eve, oh eve, she is gorgeous and brave and so, so naive. so you tell her anything you can think of, about the stars, and about angels. iron and war. and in exchange she teaches you how fruit is sweet, and sweat is sweeter. she teaches you about love even though you don’t feel it for her.

she tries her best but

you’ve only ever been a

tired heart

in a thirsty body,

and when you go back to hell you’re not as sad as you should be. you watch her go off hand in hand with adam in the desert, and the thing you feel in your chest is something you lock away for a long, long time. for what right do you have to feel guilty? what right do you have to feel anything at all?

-

lilith smiles

like a knife.

_ did you see him? _

you’re a flightless bird.

_ i did _

you don’t know it yet, but she laughs like a shotgun blast.

_ his sin undoes what god tied up. _

-

abel is the first dead; cain is the first to kill. the first death means the first funeral, the first grave dug. you watch him dig his fingers into the dirt in a gross approximation of gardening, watch him drop the world’s first murder weapon onto the ground.

and his hands are still full of blood when he turns to you and says  _ why?  _ and you can’t know the answer, you can’t, but you watch the mark cut into his skin anyways. adam’s sin took away eternal life and cain brought it back.

_ father works in mysterious ways _ you tell him, and you try not to see how well your face reflects in his wet eyes.

-

you can’t remember who told him abel would go to heaven. if it came from your mouth or god’s. either way it was wrong; either way the demons toyed with him, and had him killed again, and again, and again, by the brother that slew him. after a while you become numb with it. after a while you stop comparing it to the dream you have of micheal tearing the grace from you. after a while that doesn’t even hurt anymore, either.

pain becomes a folded belt

you see to yourself too often,

a lie in your snake jaws.

-

wherever home is, it’s always where you aren’t.

-

the first time you get drunk, a sumarian brewer puts a jug of beer in your hands, despite your insistence that you’re  _ just passing through, really _ because all you wanted was to come up for a little while so stare up at the stars. it tastes like dirt, and you make a face, and they say  _ poor soul, so young in this world _ and you balk, you laugh.

later you lay drunk in the sand, the brewery women around you, and look up at the sky. the world is spinning, and for the first time in millenia you can see it. the stars slowly twisting above you. only one of the women sees you raise a hand, trace constellations no one’s made yet, blink back the salt that brims to your eyes.

_ you’re missing someone _ she says, and you laugh again but it’s more like a choke. you can just recall watching eve age, coil in on herself, her tender smile. you miss home even though you don’t know where that is; not heaven, not hell, not any of the places in between. you miss who you were. lightbringer. you don’t need to say anything; she is wise, past her prime of years. she cups your cheek and you startle hard, still drunk, and look into her eyes.

_ it doesn’t matter how long it takes. things work out, in the end. _

burning in hell not even half a day later you wonder how she had the  _ gall _ .

-

eventually, you start to wonder if there was even any point to any of this if the people don’t even remember god, or heaven. why you fell. why you gathered history in your hand and poured it into an apple. but at the same time, you know now what you did not then; you could have never kept them under your palm. the wars they fight, the things they do to endure - no, you are too quiet now to have brought them any glory.

in egypt, you learn to line your eyes like a god. when you come up from the ground, wings like two blazing suns, someone sees you and they just smile. invite you into their home. they are not afraid of  _ anubis _ , your dark eyes, your weary voice. she gives you khol and linen, and she tells you the stories she knows.

one that sticks is sekhmet, created for the soul purpose of crushing the world beneath her paws, until her father was rife with grief with it. they tricked her, scorned her, subdued her, and made her something subservient. you tell lilith, and she coils like a snake.

_ no men like violent women _ she told you, and you tell her  _ father’s can't know your true nature _ at the same time. you don’t see her for a long time. all her sons and daughters look to you. you are not fatherly. you can only fold yourself over the edge of responsibility and fish something out, something like protection. they need you to stay. you  _ can’t _ stay. hell is harsh and full of doors closing. doors opening. the sound of them is deafening sometimes; you still flinch at the bang.

-

the greeks begin your love of wine, of fine clothes and warm bodies to keep you awake at night. you come to visit them several times, and further along, they start to talk to you about their light bringer. the star of the dawn and dusk. you can remember vividly how it felt in your hands, the fire of it still caught so close to your heart.

_ your lucifer, is he a kind god? _ you’ll ask them and they always say yes.

_ he brings us new day, commands the heavens. he is as beautiful as venus, as hospitable as the heart. who could not love a god so merciful? _

later, you’ll choke on the loneliness 

until it feels like glass. you’ll choke 

on it 

until you forget 

what it tastes like.

-

they write the book. they follow the book. they make you out a monster. they make you out a monster and you already knew that because you’ve felt like one for eons. you, poor thing, are blamed for things out of your control. eventually it hurts less to stop fighting it; to let your wings down and let the stones of sin be cast upon you. it’s easier to hate yourself right alongside them. you don’t come to visit them for so, so long, and the screaming bowls of hell fill up faster than they ever have. a helping of guilt alongside the passages, because what good was the word of god in the pen of one man?

what god

would leave

all his children

to rot?

-

you follow jesus for forty days across the desert. he doesn’t ignore you, like you thought. you’re not used to people not ignoring you. they’re not scared of you - most of them still don’t believe you’re the devil, because you’re charming, and pretty, and sometimes even kind - but he does. and he’s still not scared of you.

tempting is a trivial thing, because how can you tempt a man that wants nothing? who is all virtue and no vice?

how can you tempt

someone 

who looks at you with

a crinkle around his eyes,

with a softness you can’t

even comprehend?

no one has looked at you like that since before the fall.

you let the people believe what they need to. that you tried, and you failed, to turn him to sin. but the real answer is that you didn’t try. you clung, desperate, to his company in the only way you knew how. offering to show him the kingdoms of the world. snide comments, brushing off anything good he’d say with a scoff. you are so unused to niceties that they burn hot in the back of your throat. like you might cry if you hear too many.

it’s not fair of him to die. he’s still bleeding on the cross when you turn your face to heaven for the first time in a long, long time, and your voice is raw and rough from screaming  _ why  _ until your sound turns to air. 

-

so there’s something called grief you can’t quite keep out of your chest. it’s like what love felt like but gone sour. you are not a demon. you were created with grace. you filled this world with light. grief finds a home in your chest next to loneliness. you bury it just as far. you bury it until you can’t put a name to it, until it becomes as much a part of you as your wings, your aching skin. you can’t go to heaven. you don’t belong in hell. and earth is harsh, god’s creations both fascinating and cruel. crueler than you could be.

-

you don’t need to surface to know that the holy wars are not as they are named. from your throne, you can watch the wailing souls march in, one by one, spattered in gore, red crosses hidden in blood. you wonder if this is what you father had in mind; for so many to  _ die  _ in his name. it’s not the first time you’ve wondered. it won’t be the last.

your wrath

has never killed anyone

but yourself.

-

and so what of history?

man creates. it’s what makes them men.

and after a little while, 

you stop rising up to mingle with them.

because you’re not a man. not really.

you’re not an angel. you’re not a demon.

you’re something else entirely.

and every time someone comes up

with a new song, a new taste,

something bitter in your mouth,

you are reminded of somewhere you

never really called home.

you visit less and less. lilith 

is someone you know like a guard dog,

from a distance, and with respect.

you are used to being cynical. your heart

is behind bars. there’s only so much

someone can take 

before their blood pump turns

gristley. you hit that mark long ago.

do you even remember what it’s like

to feel the light on your face?

do you even know how to love anymore?

-

and there comes a time when enough is enough. when you can’t take it anymore. and mazikeen, your darling mazikeen, doesn’t tell you she cries when she cuts off your wings. because you’re done doing as you’re told. your rebel heart finally breaks. you know now what took forever to learn; god doesn’t love you. every time you heard  _ it’s all part of god’s plan _ you knew that it was part of his plan for you to fall. and to suffer. and to live so lonely it feels like teeth. and he didn’t even try to save you, lightbringer, he did  _ nothing _ to help you.

without your wings you can’t go back. and as much as you want them gone there’s a familiar tug of unfamiliarity. where do you  _ belong _ . where is your home?

-

she has eyes like heaven’s blue sky, and everything inside you says  _ oh _ when you see her.

-

you have spent millenia looking, and looking, and  _ looking _ and linda says  _ i think you’ve found it _ and all that time comes rushing back like the dead sea. salt in your mouth. the prospect of no longer having to search is a primal fear you didn’t know you had.

so you run away. and away. and away. until you can’t anymore because  _ she won’t let you _ .

-

but of course, it would have to be too good to be true, wouldn’t it?

-

you don’t deserve her.

-

and you don’t know what this new feeling is, because you’ve either 

forgotten what it feels like

or never felt it at all

and it’s scary. it is. and you’re the devil; fear has only been stuck to your name like a crucifixion nail, left to hang. left to bleed dry. you scramble and you flounder and it’s horrible. living like this? all full of feelings you don’t understand? maybe you can get under the skin of humans, now; emotion gets in your eyes and makes you blind.

blind enough to kill your brother. blind enough to know exactly why. blind enough to dig his grave with just your hands, frantically tossing dirt onto him because where does an angel go when they die? what peace can you give yourself, when the only thing you’ve killed may go nowhere at all? and you don’t know the answers but you’re starting to know another; it’s not worth it, getting attached, because she, and everyone else you’ve budded love for, are going to a place in which you cannot follow.

it’s not worth it. you do it anyways.

-

your wings grow back, and you cut them off again, and again, and again, feeling like a trapped animal in a cage, feeling your father’s rolled belt curled up even though he hasn’t looked at you in eons. you remember, violently, crying when they grow back for the upteenth time, still covered in blood from the last amputation. if someone was to autopsy you then they’d only see teeth, bared, not out of anger but out of desperation. 

-

when she tells you  _ no you’re not, not to me _ you can only hold onto frustration for so long before she’s kissing you. you are wide open in that moment, afraid of what she might find there, but instead she’s kissing you, and her hands are so soft on the side of your face. too soft - you still don’t deserve that level of tenderness - but oh, it feels too nice to pull away.

and still, even after that, everything builds. charlotte, cain. maybe you are a monster, still; stained red with blood, wings mangled, your dagger in his chest. you turn around and you know she sees it. the only person you even cared about thinking you were good. and she’s looking at you like you’re the devil.

because oh,

you’re the devil.

and it’s so 

unlike you

to forget.

when she flees, you don’t even blame her.

-

_ why do i hate myself so much? _

-

because when she comes back you have the audacity to be upset with her. because you let yourself be manipulated into something you’re not. because you can’t let go of the past, even though it has its claws in you. because you feel like a monster. because you let yourself  _ be _ a monster. because you fell. all of this because  _ you fell _ .

-

out of heaven

and into love.

-

_ i love her _ once, harsh, in lilium.  _ i love her _ again, softer, enochian.  _ i love her _ broken. english is the only tongue she knows.

-

you don’t know how you fooled yourself into thinking hell was home. it’s not. and you sit on your throne and nothing feels right; you are hollow in your middle, where she should be, where she laced her fingers in and cradled your heart in her hands like some holy thing and not something rotten out of you before the dawn of time. you love her. you  _ love  _ her. and all you can think about are her hands on your face, her  _ plea _ for you to stay, right against her lips.

oh, and how you wished you could. but you couldn’t risk her being hurt,  _ again _ , because of you. 

it was just

the wrong time to go,

just learning how to forgive

a millennia of sleep.

there’s nothing to see

when you look up in hell,

just a line in which to fire over. this time, you don’t have maze. after finally having smothered it for the first time, loneliness cuts like a knife, feels like being crushed from the inside out. you want to go home. you want to go  _ home _ and for once, you know where that is.

-

and you go home, you go home, you go  _ home _ .

-

you have never wanted to kneel so much as when you see her again; there’s something wild in your desperation, the willingness you have to let her reign over you. and she wouldn’t; she’s stained glass eyes, her gospel, tenderness. when you touch her it’s with every prayer you burned from you lips. you  _ want  _ to serve her, don’t question your free will for one second because you can’t think of a single thing you want more than to be with her, for all the rest of your days. and you’re not scared of dying. you never have been, not really, even if you don’t know where you’ll go. you are scared of losing her. she’s scared of losing you. but now isn’t time; you’ll have years and years to make a plan for that.

-

_ so, what is it you desire? _

_ nothing more. nothing more. _

**Author's Note:**

> incalyscent-writes.tumblr.com
> 
> thank y'all for reading <3


End file.
